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I am getting the “service battery” warning in the battery drop down menu on my MacBook P. It comes on with all three batteries that I use. The battery seems to have a much shorter life now. They were purchased at different times and one just a year ago so I am kind of surprised they would all die at the same time. Do I just need to replace them or is this a sign for a power management problem?

Download Coconut battery and check it: http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutba… This issue has a discussion thread in the Apple Forum but so far is unanswered. You might subscibe to the issue. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa…

There is only two ways to fix this: SMC - Static discharge

  1. Take out the battery and disconnect MagSafe cord
  2. Hold the power button for 30 seconds (static discharge)
  3. Plug-in power adapter & MagSafe cord, wait until the cord LED is green
  4. Put the battery back in If that doesn’t work … ‘Recalibrate the battery (takes a long time)
  5. Charge your battery up to 100% until the MagSafe cord LED is green
  6. Disconnect the MagSafe cord and run the system all the way out of batteries
  7. Put the computer to sleep (5 hours) to finish discharging the batteries charge
  8. Charge it back up all the way Anything else is pointless, it’s the SMC services within your system, it’s not a software problem.

I followed Matt’s reset instructions and it worked. Thanks BTW, I found the same info on the Apple Support Communities site, with more detailed info on Resetting the SMC (system management controller). One difference I noted: Matt said hold down power button for 30 seconds. Apple said 5 sec. For the record, I did 30 seconds. It did more than remove that battery service light. My fan used to also run excessively, and now that is fixed too! Worth checking out: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Resetting the SMC (according to the instructions above by removing the battery) did in fact work for a while, but then the service battery error came back. A friend and I have the same problem and I noticed that we also had something else in common–our AC adaptors had fraying at the strain point where the adaptor cord meets the connector. Perhaps the fraying was causing a discharge issue? Sure enough, once I got a new AC adaptor, the service battery message went away all on its own, and hasn’t come back.

Try resetting the SMC.

probaly a current sence / current flow problem in your mac. Not consistent values of current can damage your hardware. Like its happening more ofthen, ist for sure this problem. 1 )Check the current sence resistors from the battery next to the u7000 (current sense chip) 2) measure the voltage comming in the battery and comming out..

Try taking it to an AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) and have them run a battery test on it to see if it is failed prematurely or if it’s just exhausted.

all problems with warning battery service appeared after an upgrade. everything get stacked and i used Onyx to be cool again. I have a macbook pro(8,2) early 2011 with 10.8.5 and battery health was 88% (430 battery loads - 30 months macbook). After the upgrade (2 weeks now or a month i cant remember) i have 60% of battery health and 436 battery loads. I tested recalibration for the battery (without leaving my pc sleeping for 5 hours) and of course i opened from behind to get out the battery and making the trick with the 30sec… but nothing happened except than when i reconnect power cord fans started….Dan any advise about this?i need a step by step guide doing the work rightly..and then i will go to an AASP…or not? haha cheers S.

Thanks mumu0007, your procedure worked for me. I re-calibrated the battery using your steps as indicated. thanks.

You get that notification majorly due to prolonged storage of the mac. Best thing to do is to charge in off position for 5hours. power on and use up the battery totally. Repeat this cycle two to three times, the notification will clear. You might notice your battery sometimes remains on 97% even when fully charged, thats just by the way, it will still last more than 3 hours. But in a situation your battery barely crosses the 2hr mark, it might need replacement. Chi’